It only took one season without Nick Saban for a lot of "first time in a long time" things to happen. In Kalen DeBoer's debut season, Alabama lost three regular-season games for the first time since 2010, finished with less than 10 wins for the first time since 2007, and broke a 13-season streak of winning 11+ games.
A disappointing 2024 season is having consequences for the 2025 Crimson Tide. For the first time ever, Alabama didn't have a single All-SEC first-team defensive player in the preseason. That's despite the wide belief that the Crimson Tide should have one of the best defenses in the country.
And on Monday, the preseason Coaches Poll was released and Alabama received its lowest preseason ranking since 2008.
BREAKING: College Football Preseason Coaches Poll👀https://t.co/UOHDaVDFxk pic.twitter.com/ouboz88vXu
— On3 (@On3sports) August 4, 2025
There's an obvious correlation between 2008 and 2025 for Alabama football
The 2008 version of Alabama started much lower in the polls, opening the season ranked No. 24 in the country. That also happened to be Saban's second year in Tuscaloosa, much like 2025 will be DeBoer's second season at Alabama.
Saban had a bigger rebuild in hand, and Alabama went just 7-6 in his debut season at the Capstone. A monster effort on the recruiting trail led the Crimson Tide to a perfect 12-0 regular season in 2008, followed by losses to Florida in the SEC Championship Game and then Utah in the Sugar Bowl.
Considering Alabama finished the year ranked 17th after losing to Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl, a No. 8 ranking is relatively favorable. It's also mostly meaningless, but it could serve as motivation as people continue to believe that this is no longer the Alabama of old.
DeBoer's second team should be better. He didn't have the rebuild Saban had, but it was still a big cultural shift from the greatest coach in the history of the sport. It is DeBoer's team now. Last year, he was coaching Saban's team.
If Alabama can get consistent play at QB out of Ty Simpson - or Austin Mack/Keelon Russell - then this team has everything it needs to be a legitimate National Championship contender.
Two SEC teams rank ahead of Alabama in the Coaches Poll, with Texas sitting at No. 1 and Georgia at No. 4. Fortunately for Alabama, if that's how it plays out in the season, finishing third in the SEC will easily place them in the College Football Playoff, whereas before the playoff expansion it would have had them on the outside looking in.